devotion (at least as deep as the pacific ocean)
by Unrequited Hate
Summary: oh how she wishes she could say it's love... /future!Percabeth/bitter!Annabeth/older!Annabeth/o neshot/1.365 words/rated M for explicit language and mentions of sex/


**::devotion (at least as deep as the pacific ocean)::**

_oh how she wishes she could say it's love_

Annabeth Chase, twenty, engaged, pregnant. That's all she really is, isn't it? That's all a human being is. A name, a number, a status, a phase. That's all Annabeth Chase is.

She thinks of emotions less like a part of her, and more like an object, and obstacle standing in her way, an illness pinning her to her bed. She _has _ _has _loneliness. She _has _this thing she likes to call numb. She used to have love. She's better now, though. She took her medicine like a good girl, and she's fine now.

The very last thing standing in Annabeth's way is Percy Jackson. He was her love virus, but she chased him away with a few antibiotics. He's still there, though, standing there like something else than love or friendship is holding him down. Maybe that's it. Of course that's it. What is it?

And Annabeth tries, she really does try to figure it all out, but she just _can't_, and before she knows it the ceremony's over, and her pretty white dress and her flower crown are on the floor, and she's lying on this lovely, huge, soft bed in a hotel on an island somewhere in the middle of the sea under Percy's warm, warm body, and suddenly it's all too much and she can't breathe, but then he's inside her and she's throwing her head back and moaning, low and loud and long, and she doesn't really care anymore.

But afterwards, when she's sprawled out on the sheets, still naked, with Percy snoring quietly beside her, spent and tired, she does care again, she cares more than she did and probably more than she ever will because that's when she realizes what it is, what that feeling that's tying her to Percy is; and she's like a kite trying to fly far, far away, but Percy's grasp on the handle is strong, too strong and she's _devoted, fucking devoted _to him and the kid and their parents and their friends and really, there's no turning back now. She has to stay. But she's caught love once before and she knows she won't catch it again, so she relaxes back into the soft, soft sheets and decides that she'll just stay like this for a while longer, stay devoted and stay numb, until the kid's all grown up and the excitement and the novelty of their marriage has worn off and faded away, and she can finally walk off and leave and never come back. And then she's asleep.

And then, suddenly, she's thirty and she's jobless and she's stuck looking after the kid, and it's kind of fine because Percy makes more than enough money for both of them and she loves Luke, she really does, but then it's not fine anymore because she wants to do something, _be _something and it's all Luke's fault really, it's his fault they got engaged and married and it's his fault she's stuck with both of them for another eight years or so, and it's _really _not fine anymore and she hates it. But she stays quiet and she stays with them and she stays devoted and she continues counting down the years, the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes, the fucking _seconds _until she's free, finally, blissfully free.

Fast-forward another five years and she's living her own personal hell. Percy's throwing himself into his work, never home for dinner and always gone before breakfast, and the late-night and early-morning sex that used to keep the couple the slightest bit connected is completely forgotten, and Annabeth resents him for that, resents him so much but she _can't_, she just _can't _leave yet, no matter how much she wishes she could. And to top it all off, Luke resents Percy too, and he even resents _Annabeth _for being more distant, angrier, grumpier all the time, and he acts out and his grades drop and he's never home for dinner either but Annabeth still has to drag him out of his bed for breakfast, and she's _tired, so fucking tired _and completely sick of it all, sick off her devotion and her loneliness and her numbness and she can't afford to heal, not just yet, so she bears with it and thinks, every night when she's lying in bed in the dark and so painfully alone, she thinks that there's only a few more years of this left and then she'll be gone, gone forever; and only a few tears slip out as she falls asleep.

And suddenly it's three years later and Annabeth is packing her bags. Luke's off to college in the fall and Percy's still working his ass off and Annabeth still eats dinner alone and falls asleep with tears soaking her pillow afterwards. But it's fine now, it's really fine, and she puts her packed bag down on the bed and straightens up and looks out of the window and it's dark, so dark, so she decides to go kiss Luke goodnight for the last time, even if he's eighteen and she hasn't kissed him goodnight in five years.

She walks into his room and pries the book out of his hands and pushes his hair, blond like his mother's and messy like his father's, out of his eyes, so blue despite the fact that neither of his parents have eyes like that, and she almost (almost) sheds a tear at how much he's become, at how much he looks like her best friend used to look and at how much she's going to miss him, but she holds it in for his sake and kisses his forehead while he looks up at her with startled, confused eyes. And then she pulls back and smiles at him, small and watery and fragile but soft and fond and loving, and whispers in his ear, telling him that she's sorry, so sorry, and she smiles slightly wider when he asks why, telling him that he'll figure it out soon enough, and that he pleasepleaseplease shouldn't hate her and that he should go to sleep now because he looks tired. And Luke protests for a few instants but then he gives in and lets her have that privilege, just this one last time, and she leaves him with another smile and another whispered goodnight, flicking the light off as she exits. The door closes, and she finally lets the tears fall.

And it's dark and cold when she steps out of the door, wrapped up in a long black coat and elegant leather gloves and boots with her bag in her hand. She hails a taxi and she climbs in, and she's already missing her son and their house but she knows she'll be fine; she's got everything she needs, clothes and some money and degrees and qualifications, and she's got no regrets because she's leaving behind more bad things than she is good. And as the taxi drives off into the night, to the airport where she'll be catching a plane to New Rome, hoping some people might recognize her, she wonders how she managed to waste thirty-eight years of her life on a man she didn't love and a son she probably should have hated. And she tells herself that she's made some pretty bad decisions, but she's tired of living with her devotion illness and her loneliness illness, and then she tells herself that time and distance heal all wounds, even long-lasting ones like Percy, and that maybe she'll be a little less lonely when she's all alone.

So then she relaxes back into the plane seat she's in now, and lets herself sleep, and for the first time in eighteen years she's free, free of illness and free of _them_, and for the first time in eight years she knows she's really perfectly fine, and for the first time in three years she falls asleep with dry eyes, without wishing for a warm body next to hers. And for the first time in thirty-eight years she's herself.


End file.
